FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Jordi Fabre]

Rock Currier and other people are working in a project in Mindat named "Best Minerals" that I consider fascinating. They are trying to create a kind of Wikipedia of all mineral species, enhanced with nice photos from its monumental photographic archive. If someone wish to see the explanations of this project them are here: https://www.mindat.org/msgboard-63.html and if someone wish to see a good example of how it looks please visit: https://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,66,138674,138741#msg-138741 or https://www.mindat.org/mesg-66-115319.html

Well, I crossed some messages with Rock trying to help on this project, but he is too busy to find time to solicit requests here and I'm too busy to participate actively on Mindat...

Still thinking if it exist some possibility to do something on that way (people will remember that we tried something with the still unfinished post of: Preparing a list of light sensitive minerals -> https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=6535#6535 ) and this morning I got a message from Roger Lang (Montanpark) requesting details of a photo of Pyromorphite that I downloaded in Mindat, that could have a wrong locality information. Then a click light in my mind. If we discuss the topic here in FMF and then we send the final result of the discussions to Mindat?

I know that many members of this Forum are also members of Mindat, but maybe make sense discuss in FMF some particular threads coming from Mindat....
Maybe we can get here some details or infos that could complete the Mindat's thread an then send the results to they....

As an appetizer, let me start with the message below, with the request sent to me by Roger Lang.

Jordi

[Jordi Fabre]

Roger Lang said to Jordi Fabre:

>Yesterday a question arose on a picture on mindat:
https://www.mindat.org/photo-111230.html

Sebastian Möller, a knowledgeable collector made a comment (and I second him on this) about the locality and I decided to send you the link to the discussion - maybe you can solve this,

https://www.mindat.org/mesg-7-148291.html

thanks in advance,
best regards
Roger

[Jordi Fabre]

Roger,

Well, what I can say? I got it from the venerable Folch collection. He bought it in 1925, when the accurate details where not so important as today, and honestly my knowledge about the mines and minerals of this area is not so accurate to know if the label is right or not.

Sebastian Möller written: "...but I've never seen any of that kind.." but it is true too that the old specimens, time to time, give some surprise showing specimens that people don't supposed could be from some particular deposits...

At this point I would need some help and I would like to collect here some more opinions about it, to send them to Mindat in order to contribute to his great project of the "Best Minerals". As soon as I consider the discussion about this Pyromorphite solved (or exhausted) I will send the link of this thread to Roger Lang and Rock Currier and if they consider it helpful, they can use it in the way that they want, publishing it in Mindat or just keeping it on their files.

Hopefully it helps...

Jordi

[Peter]

Jordi and mineral friends
There are many old finds, from which only a few samples may still exist.
One example I came to think of. Native copper is reported since long from the Falu Mine.
The former chief geologist, a very good geologist, long time very serious mineral collector was certain that native copper reported from the Falu Mine was probably of secondary post mining origin such as Cu reduced from a solution common in the mine onto something....
In my University Collection (Chalmers university of Technology) we have a very old native copper wires! on a fissure in quartz, dating from around 1820! or earlier (The specimen came from a old collection around that time).
IAnd from other mines. road cuts etc in Sweden there was also for instanec several single finds of fantastic specimens, for the specie or for Sweden, of which only a few specimens are known and have rarely been seen by collectors.
Best regards Peter L

[lluis]

Good afternoon

I am of those that if anytime found a handwritten label by Mr. Folch saying that this sample has been given to him by a dragon, I would rise my eyebrowns, but I will copy it in my own labels.
He was an extremely accurate person. And any handwritten label by him I am sure that is exact. When he knows, he places. When he does not know, he does not place. I own a garnet formerly in his Liliput collection that has the locality as California, USA (not a big thing...But a big talker for all the history that is has.....)
Maybe he was mislead. Or maybe the Pyro was from the given locality...just it was from a extremely scarce occurence/vug..

Talking about Pyros, I have one from Grube Herrensegen, Schwartzwald, Bayern, Germany...that comes from a one time find in 2000....No before, no after....Small....
After 84 years, say in 2084, could anyone dispute the find? By sure.
But I bought in the time when it was found, by a very reliable seller. So..... :-)

One reason more to keep accurate files of the pieces we are the temporary custodians....

With best wishes

Lluís

[Les Presmyk]

Everyone can be fooled when it comes to localities and the age of a specimen is no guarantee. I have specimens in my Arizona collection that you would swear are not from Arizona. I do my best to ensure that localities are accurate but no one is 100%. The few that are questionable are labelled as such or eventually are removed.

All one has to do to understand the history of falsifying localities is to go back and read the 25th anniversary issue of the Mineralogical Record. There are incidents written about in there that highlight locality misinformation. Reasons for misidentifying localities include the following:

1. The miner or collector does not want the mine owner, the monarch, or the landowner to know where things are being collected.
2. The miner or collector does not want other miners or collectors to know where things are coming from, at least until the original person is comfortable they have gotten everything they can.
3. A dealer has a pyromorphite collector who already has five specimens from a locality that is known for its vibrant green crystals and knows that he cannot sell a sixth one. The dealer knows that the collector does not have one from another known locality so somehow the locality gets changed. The new specimen now becomes more marketable, more valuable or both.
4. Knowledgeable miners/collectors know the same thing as the dealer mentioned in #3.

This is not to question 99.9% of the labels that are placed on specimens. Just because it is an old specimen does not guarantee the accuracy of the locality. The first thing I would look at is if there were other localities producing these types of pyromorphites somewhere else.

[Gerhard Niklasch]

While I do not know the origin of this particular specimen...

We may simply be dealing with an example of:

5. A locality name may have more than one meaning depending on the context in which it is used, and such meanings may even change over the course of time.

The boundaries of Münstertal as a *geographic* entity (a valley to one side of the Schauinsland mountain) do not exactly coincide with the boundaries of Münstertal as a mining district ("Revier" - Schauinsland harbours a separate mining district). What Sebastian was pointing out on mindat was that the specimen was unlikely to come from anywhere within the Münstertal mining district, although it might well be coming from somewhere on Schauinsland, which might be considered as (in the vicinity of, or facing) "Münstertal", in a loose geographic sense.

Now the mindat location page for Münstertal
https://www.mindat.org/loc-13185.html
to which https://www.mindat.org/photo-111230.html is currently pointing does not in fact spell out explicitly whether the narrow or the wider meaning is intended! Only by looking at the other Schwarzwald location pages under https://www.mindat.org/loc-4434.html can one see that it is meant to be limited to the mining district, and that Schauinsland proper https://www.mindat.org/loc-32560.html is not meant to be included.

[Gerhard Niklasch]

Oops, hit Submit a moment too soon.

As none of us (I am confident) is in possession of a time machine to take us back to 1925... maybe you, Jordi, could simply edit the mindat photo caption to add a note that the locality was based on what was written on the old label, and that it has been called into question and might be Schauinsland instead. Viewers would be encouraged then to look around for more information about both areas and about comparable specimens, and may arrive at their own conclusions.

But don't do it in a hurry :) - more might yet come of the two ongoing threads...

[Jordi Fabre]

Super, it seems that this system (thread in both Forums) can work!

Thanks to everybody. I will wait to see how both threads develope...

Jordi

[Montanpark]

Jordi,
seems that there has ben a solution as Uwe Kolitsch added a line to the description of the specimen according to Sebastians infos ... IMHO this is the best solution possible

nice to see that 'inter-forum' communication works,

cheers
Roger

[Jordi Fabre]

Perfect solution, and very good synergy!

Jordi

[Gerhard Niklasch]

One further background thought crossed my mind while I was vacationing in the Black Forest last week...

While an outsider or modern tourist might think of this mountain range in terms of its summits, Feldberg and Schauinsland and Kandel and Hornisgrinde, this would never occur to someone native to the place. As with other places (from the Yorkshire Dales to the Karakorum), resulting from its settlement history, the locals view it mostly as the collection of its _valleys_: The Brieg-, Murg-, Kinzig-, Gutachtal and so on and so forth. The communities have formed along the little rivers draining the slopes (and many of the valleys take their names from these streams). Someone local, asked to say from where in the Black Forest he is, would naturally name the valley as the next narrower geographic subdivision - regardless of modern district boundaries. The ridges and mountains, from the local point of view, are merely parts of the boundaries separating one valley from the next.

Thus a specimen from the southward-facing slopes of Schauinsland would naturally be said to be "from Münstertal" even if it came from fairly high up - even if it came from those bits which politically are within the city boundary of Freiburg (as is the summit itself).